Firefighters have to watch the birdies (From The Northern Echo)

Firefighters have to watch the birdies

4:38pm Tuesday 19th April 2011 in North-East Business Features By Owen McAteer

Firefighters at one of the region’s airports play a lesser-known role as wildlife experts to save aviation businesses from serious accidents and expensive repair bills, as Business Editor Owen McAteer discovered.

DURHAM Tees Valley Airport’s (DTVA) fire service manager David Briggs has, as you might expect, a map of multiple flight paths pinned to the wall in his office. What may come as more of a surprise is that the flight paths in question are not for aircraft but the migratory routes for flocks of birds.

Technical faults and terrorism are not the biggest dangers that aircraft regularly face, but rather birds and small animals.

They can potentially cause thousands of pounds worth of damage if sucked into an engine or strike a windscreen, given the high speeds the aircraft are travelling at.

They are also more common than many would people would think – last year, the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) recorded 2179 bird strikes in UK air space.

Modern plane engines are designed to withstand impacts with multiple birds of up to 5.5lb in weight but collision with larger birds, such as geese, are harder to protect against.

In more severe cases, though thankfully rare, if birds fly into a jet engine it can cause it to fail and bring an aircraft down, as witnessed on the Hudson River in New York, in January 2009.

Flight data recorders showed the engines of the US Airways Airbus A320 cut out after hitting a flock of “big, dark-brown birds” less than two minutes after the plane took off.

The pilot managed to ditch the plane in the river dividing Manhattan from New Jersey and no one was seriously injured.

Even though the effects of a bird strike are, in most cases, not as devastating to a plane, they cost European airlines £1bn a year in downtime for their aircraft.

The CAA said that the most dangerous time for an aircraft to suffer a bird strike – which refers to animals as well – was at low altitudes-during take off and landing-which is where Mr Briggs and his team come in.

As well as regularly patrolling the airport’s runways and taxiing areas they carry out checks further afield, looking for habitats that could pose a potential risk.

Such is the potential seriousness that, when planning applications for various projects are made they can insist, if required, on additional control measures being put in place for new developments.

Wildlife, such as hares and foxes, also pose problems for the aircraft, so they have to removed from runways as well.

Mr Briggs said: “We go out every half hour, night and day, to patrol the operational area of the airport such as the taxi ways and runways.

When fire-fighters start here part of their training is wildlife bird patrols.

“If you look at incidents such as the one on the Hudson River that was to do with Canada Geese.

That is the biggest risk for an aircraft if they get sucked into the engine.

“There is also a cost for airlines from damage, such as cracked windscreens and more severe cases can even lead to months of downtime for an aircraft.

“We are actually in the lowest category of risk with the CAA because of the work that we do here, we are very proactive.”

The team also patrol a 13-kilometre radius to identify sites, such as quarries, where birds may be nesting, to record what kinds of birds are in the area and the times they come and go.

All 31 members of the team are trained to identify different types of birds, which is important because some fly in larger flocks than others.

The importance of identifying what species of birds are in the area is so acute that if it cannot be established from remains following a strike they are DNA tested.

A CAA spokesman said: “It is not always the size of the bird. If you get a large flock of starlings, for example, a number of those ingested into an engine is going to cause severe damage.”

Mr Briggs said: “All aircraft movements are controlled by air traffic control. We have a dedicated link, so if we see anything we believe to be an issue we can notify the pilot.”

Fire-fighter Carl Pinnington is one of the team which spends time travelling from the airport to surrounding nesting areas, such as quarries, to monitor bird movements.

He said: “The main reason we do it is for passenger safety. Potentially you could have aircraft ingesting birds or wildlife which has the potential to bring aircraft down or cause serious damage.

“One of the other reasons for patrolling the runways is if there has been a strike of some sort we need to clean it up, as, if left, it will attract other animals or birds.”

Mr Briggs added: “It is about control. There may be occasions where the guy out there does a risk assessment and decides to leave them in situ.”

The CAA said measures such as bird scare patrols had been effective in reducing bird strikes and one of the principal weapons the fire-fighters at DTVA have is a bio-acoustic digital distress signal which mimics different types of bird.

Mr Briggs said: “It is a recording of the sound of a bird in distress. Whoever is out on patrol will determine what type of bird it is. The bird will then investigate before departing.”

Flare guns are also used to scare away birds and Mr Briggs added: “It is to get them in the air if the distress call doesn’t work and to get them to go in the direction we want.”

If deemed necessary, the team are trained to use firearms to deal with animals.

Every bird strike at the airport, however minor, is logged and the information sent to the CAA.

The CAA said the work of teams like those at DTVA was essential in ensuring aircraft safety.

A spokesman said: “Bird strikes have caused fatal accidents involving aircraft, so the risk is very acute if it is not managed and if prevention work is not carried out.

“There is obviously still a risk, but you can quite drastically reduce the risk by trying, as far as possible, to move birds from the area.”